


Natural Mismatch

by starri



Category: B.A.P, K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Fluff, Friendship/Love, Just alot of sweetness, M/M, Tattoos, unnecessary watchmen references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-11
Updated: 2015-01-15
Packaged: 2018-03-07 02:39:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3158081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starri/pseuds/starri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn’t that Yongguk has an image he wants it to live up to, in fact, he is quite against that sort of thing. And, it wasn’t as if he choose a bad neighbourhood to open shop. He spent a long time ensuring that it isn’t in a bad neighbourhood, in fact. It is just…</p><p>…well, when he envisioned his own tattoo parlour, he never thought there would be a flower shop right next to it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. chrysanthemums

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the language of flowers, chrysanthemums symbolize joy, love, and preciousness. In the traditional Japanese language of flowers, _Hanakotoba_ , chrysanthemums hold the meaning of truth, perfection and is symbolic of the sun.

It isn’t that Yongguk has an image he wants it to live up to, in fact, he is quite against that sort of thing. Stereotypes, archetypes, public imagery, they are all human constructs that constrict the human understanding, he knows this. And, it isn’t as if he choose a bad neighbourhood to open shop. He spent a long time ensuring that it isn’t in a bad neighbourhood, in fact. It was just…

…well, when he envisioned his own tattoo parlour, he didn’t think there would be a flower shop right next to it.

A flower shop with a tiny sign that reads “CRÉME” in cursive hanging out ninety degrees to the wall like a bar sign. A-mazing.

 

 

Yongguk makes sure that everything is moved in and functional before painting one of the front windows with large block letters:

**PIERCINGS & TATTOOS**

Daehyun is munching on something next to him. His shoulders are bare and his arms are the colour of healthy wheat. Tips of pigment peak out from under his black tanktop on both shoulders like shy ferns.

Yongguk looks up at him from his kneeling position questioningly.

“Looks good, hyung” he says, delicately wiping one corner of his mouth for crumbs, “Just…”

“Yes?”

“It’s kinda…Straight to the point, ya know?”

“…Yes?”

“What I’m saying is, it could use a little flare?”

Yongguk draws an intricate vine pattern around the letters. Daehyun laughs “Not what I meant, hyung.”

“I know, but I didn’t want … I dunno…” Yongguk looks down at this fingers, now dyed with window paint.

Daehyun kneels beside him. “No, it’s good. I like it. Straight up dwag. Got style and swag.”

“Please never do that again.”

“Sorry hyung.”

Stretching his arms over his bent knees, Daehyun looks down their simple street, his face turned towards the morning rays. In one movement he stands and throws both arms out, stretching, embracing the sun, and he laughs, shyly at first, and then a pure deep note of laughter bursts from him. He turns back to Yongguk, his eyes two crescents of joy. “Actually, I think it might be perfect.”

Yongguk smiles up at him, letting the sun peel the labour of the past few weeks off him as well.

“I’m glad you agree.”

 

On his way in, Yongguk turns the sign hanging on the door, so that it can announce to the world:

Come on in, we are  
OPEN

 

 


	2. coreopsis arkansa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Traditionally, coreopsis arkansas are symbols of love at first sight. However, more recently, coreopsis hold the meaning of cheer and loveliness.

There’s a kid in his shop on the second day it opens. He has blond hair and he looks like someone put a child’s features on a grown man’s body. He moves like he wants to make sure his long limbs isn’t in anyone’s space, but he does it with a confidence that is rare. When Yongguk asks him if there’s anything he could help him with, he smiles like he knows a secret.

“I’m just looking.” He says.

The kid comes again the next day. Daehyun stuck up a conversation with him and the two talks and talks. The kid’s name is Junhong.

He comes and talk music and tattoos with Daehyun and Yongguk at 1:10 pm precisely on weekends, and leaves thirty minutes later.

 

 

On the second weekend _he_ walks into the shop in a white collared shirt tucked into simple black pants. Yongguk’s first thought is _did he walk into the wron_ \- but his second thought is already rolling over the first and gaining momentum _lord have mercy, that skin would look beautiful with any colour inked on_.

His third thought is how royally fucked he is when the man looks up at him and smiles with a flash of teeth.

“I’m Himchan,” the man says, and places a piece of paper next to Yongguk's register “here’s my number.”

“Ah, Hi? I’m Yongguk? Why do I-“ he trails off, unsure how to finish. Yongguk is still having trouble processing that _that voice_ came from _that face_ , the piece of paper with numbers sprawled upon it isn’t even strange in comparison.

There are gold metal swirls decorating Himchan’s collar and cuffs. One of his ears is pierced twice with placeholders in.

“Because, you’ll need to text me,” Himchan says, grinning and making his way over to Junhong who has his back turned resolutely to the room and squirming, “if this kid comes back here for more than twenty minutes.” He says and throws an arm around the middle of Junhong’s back, and starts tugging Junhong out the front door. Yongguk wonders if he should keep or destroy the number if ever the police comes investigating a kidnapping.

“Aw, hyung.” Junhong whines, dragging his feet

“Wait, you can’t just take someone like that?” Yongguk calls out uncertainly, following after them.

Himchan chuckles, gives Junhong a quick pat on the ass and says: “Back to your shift, break’s over” before turning back to Yongguk.

“You know, I’ve been waiting for our new neighbour to pay us a visit, but you never showed up.”

Yongguk blinks, “You two work at the flower shop?” he asks.

“It’s not exactly a flower shop, and half right. Junhong works there, I am the owner of CRÉME.”

He pronounced it _keh-rem_ , and even rolled the r. After he makes Yongguk promise to visit, he leaves. His white shirt has a transparent strip down the back.

 

 

It rains like the sky has a vendetta against the ground. Yongguk is glad that he lives right on top of his shop. He hopes Daehyun doesn’t drown or anything coming to work.

Daehyun is through the shop door seconds after Yongguk unlocks it.

“Did you wait long outside?” Yongguk asks him, concerned.

“Nah I waited in the store next door.” He says distantly while he attempts to towel dry his newly dyed hair, his words more subdued than usual. Actually, considering how Daehyun usually vibrated on the spot and spewed words like a tennis ball serving machine, right now he is practically mellow by comparison.

Yongguk had once theorized Daehyun’s default setting is a side effect of an overachieving metabolism.

“The flower shop?”

“It’s not exactly a flower shop.” Daehyun murmurs dreamily, apparently staring at the wall.

 

 

 

Yongguk gives into his curiosity and fulfills his promise to visit CRÉME the next day. Daehyun making love-struck faces at the wall that divides the two shops is really scaring him.

CRÉME’s window is all but filled with blossoming flowers. They spill out into the front of the shop, and hang in spheres around the door.

Yongguk pushes into the narrow door way and is hit by a wall of flora and the smell of coffee. Yongguk almost steps out again from shock. The flower wall twitches aside and reveals itself to be a young man carrying several bouquets.

“Oh, I didn’t see you there,” The man says, his name tag says Jongup and his hair is wavy and orange and matches the lilies he’s holding. “Welcome!”

“Hi,” Yongguk says, “is Himch—“ but Himchan’s voice is already floating down towards him “Oh look, its Tall, Dark and Mysterious.”

Yongguk looks up. There is an apparently fully functional café, complete with customers and everything, on the loft that looms over half the flower shop. It looks like someone put two different shops into two different levels of an overlarge treehouse. Wooden stairs lead up to the wooden second level floor that only extends half way across the building. The upstairs is half walled, the other half simply a banister against which Himchan leans. His eyes laugh at Yongguk even as his mouth says “Come on up and breakfast is on me.”

 

 

The waiter, Youngjae, smiles at him with pencil raised over his notepad. Himchan is behind the counter doing something complicated to an industrial looking coffee machine

“Ah, just a green tea?”

“You want anything to eat? We just baked a fresh batch of scones, and let me tell you my baking is sensational.”

Suspicion crawls over Yongguk. “Did a guy with pink hair come here yesterday?”

“Yeah, he bought a scone with cream cheese filling.”

“I’ll get one of those too.”

 

Yongguk tries the scone.

He’s pretty sure his tongue melted because all his taste buds are trying desperately to increase their surface area to _just get a little bit more_ of that taste.

“You gave this to Daehyun?” He asks the waiter.

“The guy with pink hair? Yeah, he rushed out without collecting his change. You think he want it back? We don’t usually get tips that is bigger than the actual order.”

Yongguk is surprised Daehyun didn’t drop on his knees and declare his undying love to Youngjae and his baking skills right there and then. “I think you’re good.” He tells Youngjae seriously.

 

 

He ends up going to CRÉME most days for breakfast. Daehyun apparently goes whenever he gets hungry, which is often.

Yongguk learns that Youngjae is there most days, but never Wednesdays and Friday mornings when he has a summer course to go to. Junhong is still in highschool, his summer is more packed with classes and he only works weekends. Jongup is their official florist, but occasionally comes up to help with the café when they are short handed. He learns that Youngjae worries about his grades even though he never has trouble with school work, that Junhong is dreading the start of the school term when he has to dye his hair back to black and that that Yongguk’s understanding of the world had been  _so narrow_  before he met Moon Jongup.

Eventually he is promoted to the special staff-only table, right next to the pastry cases. More often than not, he is joined by one of the baristas or Himchan himself. The shop is always quiet in the mornings, as if no one wants to wake the flowers dozing beneath them. Sometimes Youngjae or Junhong gives him an extra cake-pop. Only Himchan is allowed to give him one of the prized scones or muffins. Something about the way sunlight slants in through second floor windows, and bath the flowers downstairs in sharp stripes of warmth draws Yongguk in. It is not unlike the sharpness of a needle going into soft skin and leaves behind an imprint.

“Why here.” Himchan asks him one day. “If you move your shop further east, you’ll get a lot more business from the street kids there. They are always looking for new tats. Or further north. You have enough credibility to go give the rich kids up the hills their artistic awakening through inked skin.”

“I think that’s why.” Yongguk pauses to straighten his thoughts. The way Himchan’s chin tilts in both a mockery and an encouragement always makes Yongguk wants to make sure the other man really understands. “Back home, this shop wouldn’t even exist. It wouldn’t be allowed. Kids that want tattoos for the sake of having tattoos, well, they either end up getting unsafe street ones or by the time the save up enough for a proper one, they will have to go somewhere inconspicuous, like they are doing something wrong.” He waves his hands, out of words to express the wrongness of the system.

He settles for mumbling “Youths shouldn’t be ashamed of art.”

Himchan smiles like he understands, and gives him a cranberry scone. A Good Answer scone.

 

 

Yongguk opens his shop around noon and closes late at night. Business isn’t good, but it isn’t bad either. Students come in wanting a new piercing before the summer vacation ends, and young men and women tentatively ask about tattoos, then leaves with new information and thoughtful expressions.

Himchan comes into the tattoo parlour when things are quiet in CRÉME and ‘the kids are being annoying’. Yongguk found out that ‘the kids are being annoying’ is code for Jongup being too engrossed in the flowers to pay Himchan much attention and Youngjae too busy in the development of revolutionary pastries to heed Himchan’s chatter.

“The place is nice, cozy.” He says the second time he wanders in, two takeaway cups in hand. He hands the one with suspicious floaty things to Yongguk and sips the one with that appears to be a black hole made of caffeine.

“What is this?” Yongguk taps the cup, the floaty things vibrates slightly and settles back into their floaty positions half way down the cup.

“Pu-er and black tea mix. Sweetened with kumquat, plus sweet rice and aloe. Iced.”

Yongguk sips, and makes a face. It’s bitter, but with sweetness that blossom after the bitterness shock the taste buds into hypersensitivity. He can’t help but sip again as he goes back to restocking the jewelry cases. Something about the veiled sweetness calls to the mouth like an addiction.

“Why don’t you wear earrings?” He asks Himchan when Himchan wanders up beside him to admire the merchandise. “I mean, why placeholders?”

“Ah, when I got these pierced, I miscalculated how heavy most earrings are,” Himchan says, gesturing to his pierced left ear, “My lobe is really large, right? It droops easily. My noona brought a bag of these holders back from Taiwan and they barely weigh anything.”

“You don’t want to wear earrings but you want to keep them open in case you might want to one day?”

Himchan laughs, “Got it in one.” He eyes Yongguk’s merchandise wistfully. His lower lip pushes out when the thinks. “They look so pretty just sitting there, but when I put them in, it just suddenly looks weird, you know?”

Yongguk does know. How can he not when the greatest juxtaposition he ever comes across stands in front of him, walks into his shop and gives him iced drinks that are closer to metaphors. Yongguk realises that he’s staring. Himchan’s profile makes sharp edges that cuts the dim light into fragments. His ear end in flat plane of a lobe. It is pierced quite low, but very standardly, in Yongguk’s professional opinion. If even normal earrings makes them droop, Himchan’s ears must be very soft and tender.

Yongguk hurriedly turns back to his task while taking another sip of his tea. Bitter and sweet dance on the tip of his tongue.

 

 

“Hyung, we are like, honourary brothers right? I mean, I call you hyung, and you try not to throw things at me, we are basically family.”

Yongguk considers the question. “Why?” He asks suspiciously. Years of dealing with Daehyun’s chatter taught him that being decisive early on in the conversation can cause a lot of regret later on.

“I was just thinking, if you and Himchan hyung got married, that makes me honourary brother in law, right?”

Yongguk was too confused to be embarrassed. He gapes at Daehyun.

“What?”

“I mean, if I’m a honourary brother in law, that makes me eligible to have their pastries for free, right?”

Yongguk tries really hard not to throw something at him. But a bubble of laughter was choked from him despite himself. Daehyun grins at him.

“Though, at the rate you’re going, it might be faster for me to marry Himchan hyung instead and inherit half his shop.”

Yongguk throws the first none-lethal thing he could grab at Daehyun. The kid laughs even as he got a stuffed Tigger in the face.

 

 

Yongguk sips his morning matcha while Himchan drinks something that is like caffeine extract poured over ice.

“-but, living freely and being decent people isn’t mutually exclusive,” Yongguk argues. “some would even say that one is the prerequisite to the other”.

Himchan wrinkles his nose adorably. Sensitively, Yongguk corrects himself, he wrinkles it, sensitively. Damn.

“I bet different kinds of people say which comes before which, though.” Himchan fires back.

Yongguk half frowns. The other half wants to pout, and he very decidedly does not pout. Ever.

“You’re basically saying that personal entitlement and public decency cannot co-exist, and you call me the pessimistic one.”

Himchan does pout. Sensitively, Yongguk repeats to himself while both of them indulge in their beverages again. To his dread, Himchan begins to grin. The grin that slides to one side and shows his front teeth and makes Himchan’s eyes slant downwards are usually ones that ends with Yongguk being embarrassed or horrified or both with a side order of fascinated.

“Ok, Mr. Humanitarian, put your theory into the classic Watchmen Dilemma then.”

“The what?”

“Oh you rock underside dwelling -!” Himchan grasps one hand over his heart and makes an exaggerated horrified expression. “Watchmen! Like, the movie? Comics? Okay- nevermind. Look, the dilemma is, if the only way to save a billion people is to kill a million people, would you do it?”

Yongguk is silent. Would he do it?

Himchan says,“If you do it, would you be able to live freely even though you did the right thing? If you did it because you made the choice freely, would it still be the right thing?”

Himchan isn’t grinning anymore, he peers at Yongguk with the intensity of a ray of sunbeam. Penetrative, dangerous, life giving, heating up Yongguk’s skin as it lands on him unwaveringly.

He doesn’t come up with a satisfactory answer. Himchan gives him a blueberry scone. A Pity Scone. Yongguk leaves the shop embarrassed, horrified and fascinated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am stress writing because  
> stress. 
> 
> I'm not sure what to call those things they sell in China for your ears. They are just plastic sticks to put in so that your ear piercings don't close up. The closest translation I can come up with is /placeholder/. but if anyone knows, please comment!


	3. azalea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> azalea is renowned for it beauty and it's highly toxic nectar. In the traditional Japanese language of flowers, _Hanakotoba_ , it holds the meaning of patience. In Western cultures, it symbolizes passion and gratitude.

Himchan eyes the small box suspiciously.

“If you are proposing to me, know first that Daehyunnie still doesn’t get free food.”

“I’m not proposing to you- well I mean, like, it’s just a gift,” Yongguk shoves the box towards Himchan and takes a bite out of his bagel and ham breakfast. He closes his eyes, because even after two months of eating at CRÉME, his mouth still wants to make intense love to the food that comes out of Himchan’s kitchen.

“Oh” Himchan breaths.

“These came with the last shipment, and … they are really light weight, so I thought…”

“Thank you.”

They eat in silence for a while, Himchan thumbing the cross earrings periodically with his clean hand. His eyes wrinkle at the edges from a soft smile.

“So, you never told Daehyun I get free pastries here.”

“Yeah, no. I didn’t want him to go on a vengeful spree and hold Junhongnie hostage for muffins.”

“Does that make me special?” Yongguk chuckles.

“Only because you don’t have the ability to eat me out of stock in one go.”

 

 

The parlour is open seven days a week, but Yongguk takes a few days off every month after excessive checking of appointment schedules and having Daehyun repeatedly assure him that _no hyung, I will not accidentally burn the shop down, why would you even ask that?_

On his rare day offs, he wanders around the city, letting himself sink into the reassuring, terrifying thrill of being anonymous amidst the thrones of uncaring intellect. The peaceful adrenaline pump of being lost between the street signs.

Sometimes, there’s a book in his bag and he thumbs the pages when there’s a free space in the park. More recently, a copy of _Watchmen_ accompanies him and he’ll go through it with his English-Korean dictionary app open on his phone.

 

 

“How do tattoos work?” Jongup asks him one day as they both sit at the staff-only table. There are flowers weaved into Jongup’s hair, because apparently if Kim Himchan and Choi Junhong jointly decide you need flowers in your hair, you will have flowers in your hair. Jongup doesn’t seem to mind, he looks quite at home in basketball shorts, a loose tanktop and sweet peas peeking from his orange waves.

Yongguk spends ten minutes giving Jongup a verbal tour to the wonderful world of inks and needles.

“That’s so cool,” Jongup says, “it’s like, directly challenging the beauty is only skin deep thing.”

Chuckling, Yongguk sips his tea.

“Maybe I should get a part time job at your shop too,” Jongup says thoughtfully, “then I don’t have to travel far between work places.”

“Bang Yongguk! How dare you defect my precious Jonguppie?”

Yongguk almost swallowed his cup because Himchan just _appeared_. He drapes himself over Jongup dramatically, giving Yongguk his best sorrowfully betrayed expression. “To think I’ve allowed Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome over here to have free cookies when the whole time he was trying to honeypot our pure, pure Jonguppie.”

“I thought I’m Tall, Dark and Mysterious,” Yongguk laughs

“You’ve been upgraded now that you’ve managed to ensnarl one of mine with your wicked charms.” Himchan winks at him.

“Hyung,” Jongup interrupts, wheezing, “you’re choking me.”

 

 

A week before finals season start at the local university, Himchan begins to keep his café open 24/7 so that students can have a place to study late at night in a time period known as The Crunch. Yongguk finds this out two days before The Crunch when he closes shop and finds Himchan sitting out on the curb. Daehyun left a few hours earlier, so Yongguk has to tackle the task of figuring out why Himchan is sitting out in the drizzle at ten pm wearing a t-shirt and ripped jeans alone.

“Himchan,” He says, nudging the sitting man

“Yo.”

“Why are you here?”

“Rain’s naaaice.”

“Are you drunk?” Yongguk asks him sternly, trying to pull Himchan up by the elbows. His skin is cold even in the summer night air.

“Yeeeah, just a bit.”

“Come on, you’ll catch a cold.”

“Seemed like a good … whatmachacallit… deal, exchange, sacrifice… to ya know, for…” Himchan waves a hand at this darkened sky. The faintest traces of red still hover above the horizon even though the rest of the sky is a deep purple. Raindrops mix with the stars as they fall.

With some effort, Yongguk got him to stand. They lumbered into CRÉME. Yongguk sits Himchan among the flowers, since stairs probably isn’t a good idea at this point.

“Stay.” He orders. Himchan just chuckles and proceeds to stick small yellow flowers in Yongguk’s long bangs. Yongguk disentangle himself with a small smile and leaves to finish locking up his own shop.

 

In the parlour, Yongguk sends a quick text to Youngjae _> chan is drunk?? what do???_

 

When Yongguk returns to CRÉME five minutes later with towels and dry clothes, the once clean ground around Himchan is scattered with leaves and stems and Himchan has a row of flowers with the bottom of their stems in tiny plastic vials of water standing next to him. _–Where did he even get-?_

Squinting, Himchan is working to put a sprig of lilac _-don’t those things grow on trees?_ -inside its vial with slow fingers when Yongguk kneels before him and starts to towel his hair.

“What are you doing?” Yongguk whispers.

“Flower arranging.”Himchan whispers back, completely serious. “why are we whispering”

“This is like, a ceremonial sacrifice of flowers, I’m being respectful.”

Himchan stares at him, then laughs so hard he falls forward into Yongguk’s shoulder. Yongguk rights him again gently as he hiccups.

His phone vibrates with return texts from Youngjae

_> pre-crunch time drinking. don’t worry happens every semster_  
_ >hell sleep it off tmrrw_  
_ >*he’ll_

Himchan starts pulling Yongguk’s right shirt sleeve up, rubbing at the revealed skin. It’s making returning Youngjae’s text very difficult. Yongguk realizes that Himchan is staring fascinatedly at his tattoo. His hands leave the sleeve and pressing against his chest instead, tugging at his t-shirt. His chest piece is showing through the damp fabric.

_> what do I do_

_> chill hyung just leave him to wallow_  
_ >hell b fine_

“I’veee decided,” Himchan announces, “to get a tattoo. Bbang I de-mand you tat me.”

Yongguk sighs. It’s going to be a difficult night.

 

He falls asleep around midnight among the flowers and with Himchan snoring and muttering gently beside him and his hoodie draped over both of them. Sometime around dawn, Himchan nudges him awake and sends him back to his own apartment after declaring that he will be dead to the world for the next day. Apparently being closed for a day before The Crunch begins is part of the tradition.

 

The next morning, Yongguk wakes in his own bed to his phone’s insistent vibrating. He overslept. Daehyun had sent him seven texts in less than two minutes.

_> HYUNG R U OK_  
_ >OMG WHY IS OUR SHOP FRONT LIKE DIS ????_  
_ >WHAT HAPPENED_  
_ >????????????????????????_  
_ >OMMMMMG CREME ISNT OPEN WUT DO I DO FOR FOOD_  
_ >HYUUUUUUUUUUUNNG_  
_ >wait, dis mean I get the day off rite?_

Yongguk rushes downstairs to find Daehyun taking pictures of the front of the store. The painted window that suffices as the shop name is now lined with blossoms, carefully arranged with their stems in vials of water for longevity.

“What.” Yongguk says unintelligently.

“Oh my god, hyung, you’re alive!” Daehyun quickly pockets his phone, and mock tackles him “I was beginning to worry.”

“…and your first instinct is to take pictures.”

“Potential incriminating evidence! Also I can’t help my healthy appreciation of aesthetics.”

 

The flowers stay on until they withered. Yongguk collects up all the little plastic vials. Because, environment.

 

 

 

“When are you going to ask Himchan hyung out?” Youngjae asks out of the blue.

Daehyun makes an ‘ _hmmrff_ ’ noise in his throat and swivels to look at Yongguk as well. Suddenly the center of attention, Yongguk rubs the back of his neck, embarrassed.

“I don’t…”

“If you’re going to say you don’t like him in that way, I might actually smack you, hyung or no.” Daehyun tells him seriously.

“No, that’s not…”

“If you’re going to say you don’t think he likes you that way…” Daehyun stops, and rounds on Youngjae instead, “does he? I mean, he has to, right?”

Youngjae gives him a look that makes it clear that Daehyun should stop talking if he still wants to have orgasmic truffles. Yongguk had never seen anyone shut Daehyun up before. Clearly, Yongguk decides, Youngjae has yet to realize the amount of power he wields. When he does, there will be fireworks. Poor Daehyunnie.

“Himchan hyung really likes you, surely you know that?” Youngjae asks him.

“Well, yeah, but….” Youngjae and Daehyun leans forward, gesturing for him to continue. “I get the feeling, that he really likes… well, everyone.”

Youngjae exhales and smirks evilly. “Wow. That was like, the nicest way of calling anyone a slut.”

Daehyun sniggers.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.” Yongguk sighs, “Traitors. Both of you.” He points at Youngjae “Why are you here anyways? Don’t you have a final to study for?”

“I was thinking of getting a piercing.” Youngjae says.

In his corner, there comes noises of Daehyun choking as he accidentally swallowed an egg tart whole in shock.

 

The first weekend of The Crunch, CRÉME is packed with students furiously revising, blocking out the world with sound proof headphones. The atmosphere is too dense for Yongguk. Even Youngjae is staring with dead eyes down at his textbook at the staff-only table, muttering about dropping out of school and marrying a rich heiress instead. He escapes with a chilled mocha down to Jongup.

“Are you going to ask Himchan hyung out?” Jongup asks him almost as soon as he sees him.

“Why is _everyone_ asking me this?”

“To be honest, Youngjae hyung told me to ask you.”

“Is it that boy’s duty to inquire about my love life more frequently than my mother?”

Jongup just smiles at him and straightens some of the tulips. Running a hand through his long hair, Yongguk sighs, “-and why me? Does no one assume that maybe Himchan will ask me out instead?”

Jongup thinks about this. “I don’t think so.”

“Thanks for the vouch of confidence.”

“I think Himchan hyung probably thinks you’ll do a better job at it.” Jongup tells him solemnly. Yongguk can’t help but smile.

 

At 1:10 exactly, Junhong shows up in the parlour. He fist bumps with Daehyun and saunters up to Yongguk.

“Jongup hyung told me what you guys talked about.”

“Why do you kids do this to me.”

“Ohhhh,” Daehyun interjects, eyebrows wiggling, “What? What? I wanna know.”

Junhong smiles conspiratorially, “Yongguk hyung asked Jongup hyung why no one thinks Himchan hyung will ask him out instead.”

Daehyun almost fell over laughing. Yongguk just concentrates on not spontaneously combusting.

“So,” Junhong continues, “I asked Himchan hyung.”

“You _what_?”

“If he’s ever going to ask you out, hyung.”

“And what did he say?” Yongguk asks, embarrassingly quickly. That’s alright, he tells himself, because his face can’t get even more inflamed than it already is.

“He said,” Junhong pauses, momentarily his grin is eclipsed by confusion, “that, _‘Bang Yongguk is a man of words so it is his duty'._  What does that mean?”

“I have no idea.” Yongguk admits.

 

During The Crunch, Yongguk and Daehyun mostly stay away from the café next door. Everyone looks like zombies in there, it’s just way too terrifying.

 

Yongguk leaves the backrooms after an appointment and is greeted by the extremely worrying sight of Daehyun and Himchan taking selcas together.

“Don’t you have suffering students to tend to?” Yongguk asks, after bowing out his customer.

“Yeah, I had to get out after the third kid this week started sobbing about biochem.” Himchan didn’t even look up from the phone he holds between himself and Daehyun. “I’m going to change my career to full time ulzzang.”

Yongguk watches as Daehyung moves his face needlessly close to Himchan’s, his peach colour locks mingling with Himchan’s dark ones. He makes what seems to Yongguk to be an unnecessarily lascivious expression as Himchan half turns towards him to show off his cheekbones better.

“Tell me if you need tattoos.” Yongguk answers.

“Bbang, come over here right now and take some with us. Shirtless preferably.”

“Please leave me out of your softcore porno shoots.”

Himchan puts his phone down and smirks at Yongguk. “ _You wish_ you’re in one of my softcore porn-”

“Ok, yeah I’m just gonna to go and um, get ready for the next appointment. I’ll leave you two to - whatever this is.” Daehyun says with exaggerated glee and flees.

Cackling, Himchan sidles up to Yongguk, holds out his phone and snaps a few selcas before Yongguk can protest.

“You should totally renovate this place so you can sell softcore porn on one side, and we can both have hybrid shops.” Himchan laughs. This close, Yongguk can see where his foundation isn’t smoothed out properly. There’s dark shadows under his lower lids. The Crunch is nearing its end.

Suddenly thoughtful, Himchan casts an evaluative glance around the parlour: “Or a nail salon, it would help get a lot more repeat customers too.”

Yongguk makes sure his expression gives no room for misinterpretation as he deadpans “A nail salon. Himchan. Really.”

“You have no appreciation of certain types of _artforms_ , Bang Yongguk.”

“Says the _heathen_ who doesn’t know who Artemisia Gentileschi is.”

“Okay, literally no one knows that.” Himchan punches his arm, pouting. Yongguk decides to change the subject.

“Why do you have a hybrid shop anyways?”

“Ah, I wanted a coffee shop, and my noona wanted a flower shop, so we compromised. She’s trying to open another branch in a bigger city now.”

“I thought you would be the one to go for the city life.”

“I thought so too,” Himchan says, his eyebrows tilts in a penitent arc, “but, I like catering to the students instead of businessmen, though noona did ask me…” A thought seem to strike him, and he sniggers “We really are very different from each, Bbang.”

“How so?”

“Your shop sign doesn’t even advertise, and you opened this thing to give good safe tattoos to anyone that may want it. I can’t see you ever opening a café inside a flower shop in a big city to bring in customers with the shock value. But that is not the reason I turned down noona when she asked me to join her. I just can’t be bothered to go through the decorating all over again.”

Yongguk is speechless. It had never occurred to him that Himchan may understand him better than he does himself.

A tinkling at the door signals Jongup’s arrival. “Hyung, Youngjae hyung says he will stab someone and trash your coffee machine if you don’t return ‘five minutes ago’, he said.”

“Tell him he’s fired if he touches my coffee machine and I’ll be right there.”

Jongup rushes back to his post, possibly to prevent permanent scarring of psych students by Youngjae’s hands. Himchan puts away his phone but makes no move to go. Yongguk raises an eyebrow at him, but Himchan has that grin, the one that is half coy and half edged, three quarters mocking and two fifth self-deprecating. He leans in and Yongguk wants to bury his nose into his hair and breathe in the scent of hair gel and freshly ground coffee and recently broken flower stems.

“The kids’ been asking when you’re going to ask me out.”

“A relationship isn’t always the most important thing in life.” The words tumble out of Yongguk before he can catch them, but Himchan just smiles, smiles like he understands.

He’s even closer now, standing with one leg between Yongguk’s. Everything about him contradicts. His features that are sharp and cutting around the eyes and jaw but soft around the cheeks and lips and his ear that droops with the weight of cross earrings and his voice that rolls lowly between syllables and his stance, so loose yet so framed and his body that tapers but breaks into angle at strange places.

Himchan is so close that Yongguk’s world is filled by him. Suddenly there is not enough air for both of them, and there’s briar around Yongguk’s lungs, constricting and suffocating and wrapping it’s thorns around his heart and squeezing until it contracts and expands with such urgency that Yongguk can feel the hot blood burning into his arteries and-

“Hypocrite.” Himchan whispers into his ear, and with a brush of that smile against his cheek, Himchan leaves.

 

 

Yongguk makes sure Daehyun has his number on speed dial and takes the next day off.

 

 

It comes to him softly, quietly, a realization that is as shattering as an implosion in space, and equally soundless; as insignificant as the dispersing of dandelion seeds yet just as beautiful and astounding in its rebirth. He sits on a public bench, and the masses move past him, taking the world with them. The earth spins, and Yongguk is the center, the pivot. Everything is the same, but in counterpoints, terrifying in its simplicity.

He had told Himchan that decency and entitlement should come in pairs, and he had tried to live by that conviction. He had always believed that one should feel right doing the right thing. He had believed it even after Himchan’s words led him to order a comic he never heard of. But… Yet…

Yet he had also told Himchan that a relationship isn’t the most important, because he was scared, he was guilt ridden, to indulge in attraction when he should be helping the youths, when he has a goal to fulfill.

Decency and entitlement should come in pairs, but he had forgotten a partnership goes both ways. A hypocrite indeed when he refuses to consider self-satisfaction just in case it might not be right for the simple fact that it may bring him pleasure.

He almost laughs. Himchan really does understand better than he does.

Yongguk is a man of words, Himchan had said.

And now Yongguk understands. He is not a man of eloquence. He stutters when he’s put on the spot, he speak in short sentences, can’t find the right phrases to speak his thoughts. But he believes in the power words. He believes people has a right to know the truth. He believes in promises and secrets, news and debates, poems and songs. He supposes he is quite like Rorschach in that way.

Yongguk guesses that makes Himchan a man of action, the Ozymandias to his Rorschach. And, yongguk can’t help the grin now, Himchan is. He is the one who gave Yongguk his number the first time they met; buys him food, gives him flowers, talks art history and existential theories with him. Himchan is a man of action, he courts with touches verselessly. And Himchan is scared too. Too scared to put actions into words.

Yongguk is a man of words.

He has a duty to fulfill.

 

Daehyun informs him that CRÉME will be closed the day after The Crunch ends, but the staff will be there to clean up the tears.

Yongguk gets a haircut, and lets Daehyun pick out a new pair of pants for him. It hangs off his hip in crisp lines and rolls above his ankles.

 

 

 

Youngjae sees him at the door to CRÉME.

“You don’t need to look that shocked.” Yongguk comments, slightly hurt. Youngjae snaps his jaw shut again. Wordlessly, he puts down his broom, clips a rose from a bouquet and passes it to Yongguk.

“Um…”

“Oh my god, it’s obviously for you to give to him.” Youngjae gives him a push. “My love is forever for my future wife.”

“Ah yes, your rich beautiful heiress.”

“I will find her one day.”

At the bottom of the stairs Jongup spots him. He blinks, momentarily thrown, but his eternally sunny expression barely flickered. He produces a pair of black frames from apparently nowhere. The kid is a wizard, Yongguk reminds himself to tell Himchan one of these days.

“Um…”

“Trust me, hyung.”

Yongguk decides not to argue and puts them on. He’s just glad Junhong isn’t on shift right now or he might be forced to carry a self-composed serenade to Himchan too.

Well, actually, that’s not a bad idea.

He makes his way up to the coffee loft, and finds Himchan making pathetic whimpering noises as he sprawls face down at one of the tables, one arm behind him rubbing a sore spot on his lower back. Yongguk coughs to get his attention.

Himchan’s face resurfaces from the crook of one elbow, the rest of his body remains completely melted on the table.

Himchan stares.

Yongguk kneels down so his face is just below Himchan’s. The man looks like he might break something looking up at him. Himchan is still staring. Yongguk is glad of the rose now, for keeping his hands occupied. He asks,

“Have lunch with me?”

Himchan sits up abruptly, his hands flailing slightly. Coffee stains spot his work clothes. His hair is wild, and there seem to be flour over half his head. His face is edged with too much caffeine and the stress of catering to over demanding students during exam time. “Hold that thought,” he says, getting up and moving towards the back stairs.

Before Yongguk has time to react, Himchan is already half way up them to the third floor to his own apartments. He stuck his head back down long enough to yell “And don’t you dare move from that table! Youngjae, if he tries to leave, tie him to a chair.” Before disappearing. Distantly, his mutterings of “…a whole summer but fucking does this to me the day after finals…” can be heard.

Yongguk sits down, smiling.

 

Himchan returns twenty minutes later looking fresher than dew drops on new clovers. They leave for lunch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [for reference ](https://31.media.tumblr.com/8f3d5a27a8e9568c6b653ea8d5b87865/tumblr_nbv2t4RQlH1tvuqfco1_500.jpg)

**Author's Note:**

> okay so there was a tumblr post that went something like “I saw a tattoo parlour next to a flower shop today and laughed at the placement, and then I cried because _imagine your otp_ ” and guess which pair I immediately thought of.
> 
> did I use Excuse me lyrics as the title? _DID I?_


End file.
